Lambert Sets Another Record in Greater Boston Invitational

The Harvard men’s and women’s indoor track teams competed at the Greater Boston Invitational on Saturday at the Boston University Armory, testing its skill against teams from all over the area. The meet, often called the “Beanpot of Track,” hosted competitors from Bentley, Boston University, Brandeis, Northeastern, along with Crimson competitors.

Northeastern swept both the men’s and women’s sides, erasing the memory of its loss against Harvard three weeks ago. The women’s team finished in second, while MIT’s strong performance pushed the Harvard men to a third place finish.

Harvard Men

The last meeting between the Huskies and the Crimson had a vastly different result, as the Crimson beat Northeastern, 82-63. The Huskies got their revenge, with a little help from MIT. Northeastern coasted to a victory with 133 points, and MIT edged Harvard 81 to 79 for second place.

“I’m disappointed with our performance on Saturday,” said co-captain John Cinelli. “We had no anxiety or adrenaline going into the meet.”

The sprint events, however, were a bright spot for a Harvard squad that traditionally has relied on the middle distances for points.

Led by junior newcomer Chris Lambert, the Crimson took the top spots in the 55-meter dash, the 55-meter hurdles (won by senior Rich Bravin), and the 200-meter dash, where Lambert broke the Harvard indoor record.

Lambert took the top spot in both the 55 and 200, with co-captain Kobie Fuller close on his heels in the latter race.

“It’s about bringing points to the team, so we were happy with our performance in the sprints,” Lambert said.

However, the Huskies’ depth in the short distance events allowed them to match Harvard’s points in the sprints despite not taking the top spot.

“Northeastern had a lot of entries in the sprints, and they were able to take some middle distance points from us as well,” Cinellie said. “We just didn’t come out without any tenacity.”

Strong performances by MIT and Northeastern in almost all the field events helped power the two squads past the Crimson. Harvard’s top finisher in any field event was Jeremiah Miller’s third-place finish in the triple jump.

One Crimson competitor was missing for the meet, as sophomore miler Alasdair McLean-Foreman competed in the Mayo Invitational at Notre Dame. Accompanied by Crimson head coach Frank Haggerty ‘68, McLean-Foreman finished in 4:06.47, good enough for fourth. The time is just a second over the NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 4:05.20.

The men face off against Yale this weekend at Gordon Track, in their last Ivy contest before Heps at Cornell.

“It’s a focus thing, and I think we perform better in big meets,” Lambert said. “Saturday was experimental for us, so we’re confident about going into Yale.”

Harvard Women

The women battled Northeastern down to the last few events, but were narrowly edged out of victory, 122 to 116 1/3.

The Huskies surged to a lead after the sprint events, as only freshman hurdler Eleanor Thompson won an event. Her time of 8.57 in the 55-meter hurdles was good enough to hold off two Northeastern runners.

Thompson, who also runs the 400-meter dash, was forced to run that race just minutes after the hurdles finals, leading to a disappointing time.

Co-captain Carrie McGraw finished third in the 200, and did not compete in the individual 400-meter event because she had been feeling under the weather earlier in the week, which affected her practice schedule.

In the middle distances, Harvard was lead by junior miler Claire Nichols, who overcame a scheduling error to finish second. Nichols raced to the start line seconds before her race, and was able to post a time of 5:17.42.

The Crimson scored well in the 800 as well, posting three of the top five finishers. Sophomore Bev Whelan took the event with a 2:18.25, edging out Crimson junior Samantha Piper by one-hundreth of a second.

The tight competition came down to a few events, and Northeastern was able to hold the Crimson off. In the distance medley, Harvard was barely defeated by Brandeis, who staged a remarkable quarter-lap comeback around the final turn to edge the Crimson relay squad by half of a second.

Co-captain Nicky Grant paced the Crimson in the field, winning the two throwing events. While her marks were down from previous competitions, they were enough to score the first-place points.

Harvard returns to Gordon this weekend to take on Yale and Princeton. The Crimson women swept H-Y-P’s last year, but expect a tough matchup from the Bulldogs this time around.